Check On Your Friends! Mental Health Monday

I’ve been going thru some stuff lately, I’m not sure if you all can connect with it or not. I’ve been stuck in my house, my routine has been disrupted as fuck, and I feel like a retired person! Holy hell… It’s like there’s a global pandemic going on or something… As someone who had all the greatest support networks set up, they ALL went to shit when everything hit the fan. For one reason or not, my strong, big spiderweb of support had collapsed. I felt alone.

Yeah, This pandemic is doing a number on everyone. One thing I keep hearing, even from people that never talked about feelings before this, talk about how they feel anxious, or depressed, or they don’t know, but they know it’s “not their usual”. I can empathize. My life got straight flipped upside down with this whole pandemic, quarantine, dealio. Here’s how my schedule and everything got wrecked. It started with the pandemic… lol Most understated sentence of the year… First, the schools closed and unbeknownst to me at the time, my main social outlet was gone. GONE. Then, no visits, enact social distancing measures, blah-dee-blah, and now I can only see my CASA kids thru facetime. And then the CASA office closed. Scouts shut down as soon as the city placed a shelter in place order.

Literally, my whole social support network was gone in the span of a week. It reminded me of my “ikigai post” where I talk about people that have a purpose, no matter how trivial it may seem, people with a purpose report higher levels of happiness, and, AND live longer. Yikes! My ikigai was gone in a week. I miss my PTA ladies and I miss my kids elementary school. It was literally a second home for me, looking back on it. And now, nada. Well, at least there is still support through groups like DBSA (Depression, Bipolar, Support Alliance), my group therapy group for talking all that stuff other people don’t want to hear. A place to be real, honest, be heard, and not be judged. It has been an amazing outlet for me for most of the time I’ve been here.

Check on your friends. Do you have a person that you haven’t heard from in a while, or one that you think could use a text, fucking send it! Just, “Hi, thinking of you!” Or “Hi, just saying Hi!” Sure, sound stoned, they won’t care. I know I wouldn’t. I’ve gotten ghosted recently, by someone I’d have called a friend, and dude, silence suuuuuucks. Silence is the worst. Please don’t let your friends hang out in the void and deal with (gestures arms around in the air) all this shit alone.

Here’s why that sucks so badly. My support networks disappeared and my dbsa group was headed down the toilet. Thru my separation, I dropped out of group for over 2 months and didn’t hear anything from either of our facilitators. Just silence. Silence sucks…

I avoided group because our facilitators had made it more about them and less about “support” unfortunately. I just didn’t want to “be the entertainment” or deal with any over reactions as our facilitator is prone to do. Anyway, January, I posted on our private FB group what had happened and that I didn’t want to discuss it beyond that, unless I brought it up in group. My one outlet for being open and not judged now feels shut out because I feel judged there. That sucks.

Over the next few months (Feb-April), each time I went to group I left feeling more upset than when I went. I started skipping, I went to make friends in the music and songwriters scene, also on Thursday nights, so easy enough to switch, and holy hell, I started feeling a little better. Eventually I made it back to group and yep, still not good. Then Covid hit, and our group couldn’t meet either.

I figured the national chapter would have a plan and keep meetings, because “support group” and why leave people hanging out to dry now? Well, that’s what happened with our group. Any emails/texts/FB posts about meetings online, Zoom, Skype, Discord, literally anything, were met with a flat “nope, haven’t heard anything” from both of our facilitators. After talking with one of my group friends, she setup a discord server for us, and 5 of us hopped on and were amazed! Like, how was this so hard?! Connecting and catching up and letting every one know that we’re here for each other was awesome, even if it’s only 5 of us. I set up a skype meeting for us, not official, since I’m not a facilitator, and it went great, but we still wanted an actual meeting, not just an informal share. Go Figure…

Long story long, it never happened and our facilitator isn’t stable enough to cope with the roles of being a facilitator at this time. And we’re all left hanging in the wind. Just silence, except the wind blowing past us. Silence sucks.

Why such a long story for a short ending? My point is, I’m “Mr On Top Of It” when it comes to mental health, and in the space of a few weeks, ALL my outlets and support systems disappeared. No PTA ladies to talk to during the day, no CASA office peeps to hang with, volunteer and socialize with, no DBSA mental health outlet, after our insurance approved telehealth sessions with therapists, our divorce came thru and health insurance dropped retroactive to the 1^st. April Fools! Lol But seriously, my new plan is catastrophic coverage, because beyond shrinks and therapists, I don’t really need doctors, yes, I know I just jinxed the rest of 2020 for me… However, Literally all my outlets were gone.

Then, because I got sick with who the hell knows what, over Spring Break, I went 5 weeks without a hug from anyone. The kids, friends, anybody. Total Sucktown…

What did I do? Well, I wallowed in the #sluglife for a solid week and a half and then realized, this isn’t sustainable.

I started back up with life and am doing things again and working on all sorts of stuff.

That’s me, I’m weird, what can I say. IDK, but I know what I can say. Don’t assume your friends that “have their shit together” have their support network. Mine were ALL gone in a matter of weeks. ALL. Gone. I started a separate FB group for those of us who want to connect since our facilitator seems to want “total authority” over how we meet outside group and has actively shut down efforts to connect during this pandemic. It’s so weird…

Check on your friends. Do you have a person that you haven’t heard from in a while, or one that you think could use a text, fucking send it! Just, Hi, thinking of you! Or Hi, just saying Hi! They won’t care. I know I wouldn’t. Recently, I’ve gotten ghosted by someone I’d have called a friend, and dude, silence suuuuuucks. Silence is the worst. Please don’t let your friends hang out in the void and deal with (gestures arms around in the air) all this shit alone.

If you feel that you’re in this alone, know that you aren’t! DM me and I’ll send you my cell # or email or whatever and we can talk, facetime, text, email, whatever it takes. Please, reach out I’m serious.

If you don’t want to reach out to me, there are national virtual dbsa meetings, they keep your name optional, diagnosis(es) optional, literally it’s designed to be a place to be heard, and not judged. Those meetings saved my life, here’s their virtual info.

https://www.dbsalliance.org/support/chapters-and-support-groups/online-support-groups/

They have many meeting times available, and seem to keep them fairly well updated.

If you’re dealing with a different kind of support that isn’t happening now, look at virtual AA meetings. This link has a lot of options available with multiple links to virtual meetings on this page. I know my dad probably wouldn’t have made it thru this sober, if he started off quarantining sober, without meetings. Please look into it.

https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/options-for-meeting-online

For those with other addictions there is this link.

https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

For “higher than usual” Anxiety folks, check this page out.

https://www.verywellmind.com/best-online-anxiety-support-groups-4692353

A very good list of support groups out there, almost all of whom have virtual meetings covered when you go to their page.

For any mental health issue, screening, or more, check out Mental Health America

https://www.mhanational.org/find-support-groups

If none of those fit the bill, reach out to some here, it’s chat, so not talking I hate talking to people, especially on phones, so please, chat!

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/

If you need or want to talk to someone here is that line as well.

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

tel:1-800-273-8255

Don’t forget those who may not be doing as well as you. Even for those of us that seem “on top of it” all of your support network can be gone very quickly. So, please reach out! Check on them! Fuck, just send a text, it can literally be that small of a gesture. Let them know that SOMEONE is thinking about them. If you don’t get a response, don’t worry, it’s seen and appreciated.

Let me know if you’ve had any mental health debacles during this whole pandemic… What did you do to deal with them? Any tips or places you’ve experienced that you’d like to share? Please do!